changes

I am building this web site as a place to collect and share things I’m working on, as well as my random obsessions. This old “about” page originally served as my single-page first draft/iteration. The site you are viewing is my third iteration, which has some additional features to be found by clicking on the ‘+’ sign in the top right corner of the page.

About this Project

I’m using this site to learn more about web development and design. I’m tired of silos and bloated content management systems, so I’m trying to be more DIY and Indieweb.

This is my third draft/iteration of the site, using the W3.CSS framework to build out custom theming and templating for the the Hugo static site generator, hosting the final product via Github and Netlify.

My next step will be building out a template and multi-page publishing capabilities, likely with Jekyll. My next steps will be creating a custom taxonomy, fully indiewebifying this site, and more navigational features, and possibly incorporating a photo blog section. I’m also thinking about building a hyper-narcissitic, cross-platform lifestream/microblog with Known and/or Micro.blog.

WP51

Yes, I am trying for a vaguely Wordperfect 5.1 aesthetic. I think I’m doing this because it puts me back to when I was a tween writing things and creating stuff on an old 286 in the basement. It was already an ancient computer even then. Fonts are currently IBM Plex Mono and Merriweather Serif, both via Google Fonts.

Standalone post link: About

Welcome! I am building this web site as a place to collect and share things I’m working on, as well as my random obsessions. This “about” page originally served as my single-page first draft/iteration. The site you are viewing is my second iteration, which has some additional features to be found by clicking on the ‘+’ sign in the top right corner of the page.

My Work

I am a digital content manager for the library media program and educational technology department of a large public school district. I catalog, curate, document, promote, and support library and technology resources for students and staff.

I am passionate about connecting students and teachers with the best resources and making resources ever more accessible and discoverable, whether that means a physical copy of a not-as-well-known-as-it-should-be middle grade fantasy novel or the latest digital learning tool on a classroom Chromebook.

You can see some of my work at granitemedia.org, www.graniteschools.org/edtech, on social media channels such as @edtechgsd and @librarymediagsd, and in other library and content management systems accessible only to students and staff in the district.

My Family

I am husband of Virginia and father of two children who do not yet have web presences. (I may help them with that soon.)

My Writing

I am an occasional writer. The new iteration of this site will come to incorporate writings from my once and future blogs. The old sites are forlorn, neglected things, and I actually don’t feel comfortable linking to them at this point. Reintegrating them and having a nice place to share writing going forward is at the heart of why I am building this site.

The past few years I’ve been most likely to share thoughts or links to my writing on twitter, at @jdwhiting. I also share and retweet a lot of library, children’s literature, and educational technology kinds of things related to my work, although I’ve been kind of quiet lately.

My Reading

I keep track of my own reading and follow the reading of my friends and colleagues on Goodreads. Feel free to friend me there.

When I read children’s or young adult literature I try to make it a habit to write a review, and when I do I always publish the review first on Granite Media, which is my district’s library media site and home for book reviews from school librarians, teachers, and students.

I’m a member and chair of the Children’s Fiction committee of the Children’s Literature Association of Utah. We determine the shortlist nominees for the Beehive Book Awards, which kids and teens throughout Utah vote upon to determine winners.

Other Places You Can Find Me

I obsessively and meticulously document all the music I listen to via last.fm. (The Universal Scrobbler enables me in this endeavor.)

I’m trying to learn more about film and watch more movies, and I document this at Letterboxd.

I sometimes take random pictures with my phone. Long before Instagram, I once fancied myself an interesting photographer. I may get there again. I also intend to incorporate photos directly into this site; that’s a 3rd draft/iteration feature.

I always have it in mind to eventually do something more with Pinterest than I am currently doing, such as using it to explore and curate more art and photography. My wife is a Pinterest power user, and I linked to her profile above.

I love the idea of location-based social media, but I don’t like the reality of Swarm all that much. Nonetheless, I do use it occasionally. I still miss Gowalla. If you know of a good location-based platform for documenting travel or visits to interesting places, please share it with me.

About this Project

I’m using this site to learn more about web development and design. I’m tired of silos and bloated content management systems, so I’m trying to be more DIY and Indieweb.

This is a second draft/iteration using the W3.CSS framework to build out custom theming and templating for the the Hugo static site generator, hosting the final product via Github and Netlify.

My next step will be building out a template and multi-page publishing capabilities, likely with Jekyll. My next steps will be creating a custom taxonomy, fully indiewebifying this site, and more navigational features, and possibly incorporating a photo blog section. I’m also thinking about building a hyper-narcissitic, cross-platform lifestream/microblog with Known and/or Micro.blog.

WP51

Yes, I am trying for a vaguely Wordperfect 5.1 aesthetic. I think I’m doing this because it puts me back to when I was a tween writing things and creating stuff on an old 286 in the basement. It was already an ancient computer even then. Fonts are currently IBM Plex Mono and Merriweather Serif, both via Google Fonts.

Standalone post link: About

I’m trying out Alegreya as the regular text font on this website.

I’d been using Merriweather for a few years and I liked it okay, but occasionally something felt janky with the width and spacing between characters. I’ve wanted to try something else, but messing with fonts seemed like a distraction when I don’t do enough of the basic stuff here, like actually write things, or keep the home page and menu working properly.

However, seeing how excited this guy got about a cool font inspired me to start looking at fonts again. (One of the growing number of personal-ish websites I lurk follow via RSS, a topic for another time.) The font he geeked out about wasn’t the one for me, but I encountered the Novel font, tried out the demo on a local build of my site, and really got my heart set on using it. Eventually I came to terms with the reality that I can’t or shouldn’t spend that kind of money on a font for this little hobbyist website, though.

So, I pulled myself away from browsing Fonts In Use and artisan font foundries, went back to Google Fonts to settle on something I can afford. Some of the Google Fonts, such as Alegreya, do appear to have come from cool artisan font foundries, so at least there is that. I don’t think I open up my “indieweb” site to tracking and other garbage just by using Google Fonts, but I could be wrong. I’m using free services for almost every aspect of this website, so I’m likely compromised and beholden to all sorts of interests.

Headings remain IBM Plex Mono. I have a vague sense that this pairing of a mono heading with a serif is not ideal and wasn’t ideal with Merriweather, either. However, the probability that I’m breaking design rules and conventions is admittedly an energizing agent. There’s something in me that wants things to be purposefully off and ugly and wrong; part boredom with convention, and part fear of the inability to ever get it “right.” Maybe this isn’t off enough, though? Mainly I’m just weirdly committed to these precious mono headings, while I don’t want a sans font for my text because I just prefer serif fonts for printing or displaying text. So it is what it is. I can do whatever I want here, and I can always change it again, and, to quote my old favorite band’s blog quoting Jean Genet, “to achieve harmony in bad taste is the height of elegance.” These are individually good fonts, though, so is this cacophony in good taste? Power clashing? Or just sloppy, inelegant.

Standalone post link: A note on the type, 2024-08-04

Made significant updates to the text and layout of the home page, about page, footer, and ‘[ + ]’ menu ordering. Changed the text font to Alegreya.

Standalone post link: joshuawxyz changelog 20240804

Standalone post link: Books

I track my music listening pretty exhaustively using last.fm, and have about six full years of history there. This is a place for me to manually highlight particular listening projects or obsessions of the moment.

Not sure how retroactive I can be - weird, but I might go back roughly to the beginning of 2024 or even the end of 2023 to make sure I cover some key repeats or personally meaningful listens.

Standalone post link: My 2024 Listening Log

Pushing up new listening, playing, and reading logs with several entries, though still not exhaustive, and with old clutter still not cleaned up. More changes, details, documentation pending.

Standalone post link: joshuawxyz changelog 20240512

Now

• bought a new-to-me car a few weeks ago and I’m really enjoying it +

  2020 Subaru Forester Sport, dark gray, orange detailing, black wheels with chunky all-terrain tires, and moderate acne from having been in a Texas hailstorm (saving me possibly $8-10 grand?)

• at work, keeping up with Sora collection development +

  new releases, renewals, keeping the hold ratios down

• also at work, cleaning up the catalog +

  fixing book series, building out records, which is a satisfying practice in the moment but feels possibly fruitless afterwards when having worked on it for an extended amount of time - like playing a video game? An arcane MARC record video game.

• getting ready to do a presentation at UCET+UELMA 2024: Cataloging Tips for Busy Librarians +

  which is super boring and nerdy, even for a library and edtech conference, but maybe useful? I was about to cancel out of anxiety, embarrassment, and laziness and not go to the conference, but when I saw 84 people had expressed interest in attending in the Sched app so far, and there just aren’t that many offerings for librarians, I realized I couldn’t flake out quietly.

• still trying to establish a sustained writing and learning practice in my “thoughtgarden" +

  what I call my Obsidian vault instead of a “digital garden” now, because its digital-ness is not the most essential thing about it)

• trying to re-establish a personal sharing and curation practice on this website +

  and likewise re-establish a professional sharing and curation practice with work colleagues

Next

• thinking about getting some gardening going
• thinking about going off on some kind of overlanding-ish adventure in my new car
• building out this website again
• reading a bunch of books, watching a bunch of movies

This page was last updated on March 17, 2024. See my prior ‘now’ updates here.

Credit for the ‘now’ page concept goes to Derek Sivers. I tend to get aspirational when I update it, so I’ve decided to embrace that by calling it ‘now and next.’

Standalone post link: Now and Next (March 15, 2024)

Test:

1. If this note appears, I’ve figured out how to post a note to my website (static website run through Hugo/Github/Netlify) just by creating a note in my Obsidian vault. Cool.

2. If this note also appears, I’ve further figured out how to edit the Obsidian note to have it push an update to the website post.

3. If this third note appears, I’ve successfully done an update via Obsidian on my phone, and I now finally have an easy way to post quick notes to my static website from my phone. Neato burrito.

I guess I’ll have to put together documentation and credits for all of this now.

Not sure why the “last updated” timestamp says tomorrow, though. Have to figure that out.

Thanks for reading!

Standalone post link: Posting to my website from an Obsidian note?

Some things I’m working on and thinking about now…

Now

• making a little progress on activating and functionalizing this website again - I’ve set up my reading and listening logs for 2024, and I have them propagating to the main ‘now’ page

• inspired into reading kidlit and yalit again after the ALA Youth Media Awards, book talks to librarians from King’s English booksellers, and otherwise finding a lot of intriguing titles while doing collection development work for Sora

• focusing on collection development work for Sora, and also carving out space for myself to actually do some catalog improvement work

• laundry, dishes, grocery shopping, cooking, &c.

• taking baby steps towards being more deliberate and thoughtful about food and shopping choices in terms of quality, variety, supporting local businesses, paying in cash at local businesses, sustainable and fair trade products, &c.

Next

• a bunch of movies I want to see in the theaters, award nominees coming back, etc, but I haven’t gone once yet

• Plan and prep the garden and yard for spring

• cook a bunch of stuff

• compile and share ‘top titles’ in the school libraries for 2023

• research and plan my cataloging breakout for UCET/UELMA conference in March

• get doing stuff outside - hiking, snowshoeing, or at the least yardwork and taking Luna on walks

• honest writing

Visit the main ‘now’ page to see my growing library of dynamically generated activity logs and links to my past ‘now’ updates.

Credit for the ‘now’ page concept goes to Derek Sivers. I tend to get aspirational when I update it, so I’ve decided to embrace that by adding a ‘next’ section.

Standalone post link: Now and Next (January 28, 2024)